Something Has to Make You Run
by fasterassembly
Summary: Post-series. Juri takes a vacation in Maine, and finds herself with an unexpected ride.


She is in Stockholm when she receives her sister's letter. _Greetings, Juri,_ it says in English. _When you are tired of Europe, come see me. You will not need to call._ The return address is for a town in Maine. A vacation home, she wonders, or a new residence? Before today, she believed her sister was living in Los Angeles.

She's in Europe on a post-graduation tour, though it's debatable whether she's truly graduated. She left Ohtori under circumstances that defy her ability to either remember or comprehend. _No matter, no matter,_ the teachers chirped as they pushed her towards the gates. _You've graduated, so goodbye and farewell._ Then she was standing outside the gates with a rolled up diploma in her right hand and a plane ticket, one way, in the other. Just like that, she was pushed out.

It's nearly the end of her journey, both in terms of things on her itinerary and in plain personal progress. In Europe she toured cities and climbed mountains. She breathed thin air and found herself no different for doing it. She dove in the Mediterranean until she thought the pressure difference would kill her, she tanned under fat, self-satisfied suns, she knocked pins into the gutter, ten at a time. And what has she learned about herself? Nothing. The clear, blue waters were deceptive—but at least they were clean.

* * *

The first thing she does at Laguardia is get her suitcase. The second is to rent a car.

"Manual," she says to the man behind the desk, while thinking: Do you really believe I can drive? I've never been in the driver's seat in my entire life.

Then she's roaring up I-95, fingers curled around the wheel like ten pale snakes clinging around a branch, the sun sinking into strange trees on her left, the moon rising in red on the right. All the while the car breathes beneath her, growling at her clumsy gear shifts, clicking its metal at her as it rips through the roads. The radio is set to the same channel: a woman's voice trying to push through garbled static and failing. It refuses to be shut off for hours, and only does so after she rolls the windows down; but even the winds are calling to her. Juri, Juri, Juri.

Five hours after she leaves the airport, the car stops dead in front of a hotel in Portland. Something wrong with the engine, says the man who helps her push the car into the hotel parking lot. Either way it's nearly nine o'clock at night and she has been driving for a long time; the truth is, she has been looking for a chance to give up.

She checks into a room, walks up the stairs, and slides her key card into the card reader, like putting a tongue back into a mouth, though with more green lights and less blood. The door to the room next to hers flings open.

"You!" Shiori says.

She's still in her school uniform. Her hair's windswept, her eyes red and wide as though she's been standing in front of a fan with her eyes open until they tear from the dryness.

"Me?" Juri says. The key card trembles in her hand. She shoves it into the mouth. A clicking sound: that of the lock, and that of her jaw. She opens the door, and Shiori follows her into the room, urgently, demanding. She turns and Shiori is there again, too close: her eyes, eyebrow, forehead, the bristling, fluid forest of her hair, take up too much space and disorient her. She turns her head to the side. Shiori takes her by the jaw and forces her straight.

"Are you surprised to see me?" she says. "You were riding me all day—"

"Shiori!"

She lets go. Her hand draws back to her body, then rises up to touch her lips. "I was the car, you know."

"But you have your own room."

"It's just where I appeared. Look—down there, at the parking lot. I don't have a key."

Shiori crosses the hotel room and yanks apart the curtains, and nods to the place Juri parked the car. Juri doesn't need to search hard to find the empty spot. Juri looks to the bed, then to the vacancy in the lot, then to her coffee maker, where Shiori is boiling water; back to her bed.

A dreadful feeling creeps up her spine. "You should have stayed in the other room," she says.

"I can't go back. Someone was in there. What—do you think you'll lose your precious self-control and molest me in your sleep?" The naked skin on her eyelids has a sheen like the scales on a butterfly's wings. They grow thin as her eyes grew wide. "You don't want to anymore, is that it?"

From the once-empty room come the squeaks, the bumps, the bubbly laughter of sex. Shiori casts an ugly glance at the shared wall and says, in a whisper, "She's faking it."

She presses two fingers against the bridge of her nose in frustration. Shiori sits on her bed and crossed her legs. The mug of tea steams in her cupped hands.

"I'm going downstairs. To the reception area," Juri says.

"She sounds like I do when I'm pretending. I bet she's not even enjoying it. Not really."

"American hotels will give you a cot if you ask for one. Or so they say."

"Juri-san, have you ever had sex with an American?"

"And I'll ask for extra towels, and a pillow—"

"You think you're being so noble, sleeping on the floor, but you're just a coward."

"Don't try to torment me," she says.

"I'm not," Shiori says, but smiles, betraying her pleasure.

* * *

There are no cots. She comes back up to her room, fetches the swimsuit she meant to wear on the beach at her sister's house, and does some laps in the hotel swimming pool. The water is green and dark, and the air above the water is heavy with heat and chlorine. When she takes a shower in the locker room she can still smell it: the chlorine. The salt of an unknown sea.

When she returns, Shiori is already in bed. Her hair spreads out across the pillow like a slaughtered octopus and her eyes are shut. Juri is about to settle into the bathtub for a nap; but Shiori says without opening her eyes, "I'm going to turn back into the car in the morning, anyway."

How can she know this? Is this something she does often, turning into a car and then turning back when it pleases her? Starting her engine then stalling it according to her pleasures?

She removes her shirt, then her pants. Shiori keeps her back to her, her eyes defiantly shut. She changes into her nightgown. Matronly and dowdy, it covers her from throat to ankle. When she climbs into the bed she realizes: Shiori is naked beneath the sheets. She opts for paralysis instead of hurtling herself out of the bed. She can feel the sword in her sliding on the inside, waiting to come out.

"Shiori." And for this she turns to look over her shoulder. "What do you mean, you turned into a car?"

"Vroom!" she says, then rolls over to the far side of the bed, away from Juri. Juri closes her eyes and prepares for sleep. In the dark comes Shiori's sudden voice. "A miracle, perhaps."

* * *

In the morning the car's back in its spot in the parking lot. There's a letter next to the coffee maker.

_Juri-san, I know nothing can make up for what I did last night. Please forgive me. I wish I knew what came over me. The truth is, I always admired and respected you and resented you, too. When I took your boyfriends, I took them so you couldn't have them. But now that I can't take anything from you, I realize how silly I was._

_You're a difficult friend. But I'm sure in this world we can find the right balance._

A miracle that lets a girl turn into a car. It sounds more like a curse.

Even so. After eating breakfast at the hotel buffet, she takes her suitcase, opens up the car trunk, and sets it inside. Then she slides into the car itself, her body stiff and rigid. Twenty minutes on the road and her back is sore and her hands ache at the joints. Abruptly she remembers Touga, the casual sling of his arm across the back of a chair, his long, red hair. Then Ruka, then Saionji, then Miki. What happened to those boys who once were her friends? They've vanished from her eye out of Ohtori, into the outside, into the grave. Those boys never grew up to be men. Then again, becoming a man might not have been what any of them wanted to begin with.

* * *

Bar Harbor is still three hours away. She turns on the radio.

"Bored?" Shiori says, her voice a haze of static. "Tired of thinking?"

"Who knows," she says. "I'm still jetlagged. They say you can't be responsible for the things you think about when you're sleep deprived."

"I bet you didn't even recognize me. Even though the license plate has my name on it."

It wouldn't have made Shiori feel better if Juri had. Juri curls her fingers around the steering wheel. She wonders how much control over this she really has; if Shiori might take her to California, New Mexico, Las Vegas, if Juri lets go. More likely Shiori would prefer to send her into the ocean or a mountainside. "Shiori, how did you turn into a car?"

"It's the strangest thing. I don't remember."

"I'm sure."

"If only I could remember! You're right, I didn't earn it. I was given it. But I was given it because I deserved it. That's something. That counts." The speedometer creeps higher, then lowers abruptly. The car behind them blares its horn and swerves around them. "Some of us can't be born extraordinary."

"You were, though," she says. Meaning it.

"Yes. To you." The headlights flicker on, then off. "I don't care about that."

The radio goes blank with a staticky buzz. Then Shiori comes back on and says, "There were times when I walked right by you without knowing who you were, too."

She can sense the tenderness in Shiori's words, even if it's only the surgeon's hand steadying the body before the cut. Desire washes over her, like a tide reclaiming a beach. "When was this?"

Shiori's engine sputters and snarls.

"It doesn't matter anymore."

* * *

They arrive at Bar Harbor right on time. It's summer and there are people everywhere. The town feels too full; no doubt in the winter and spring the town deflates to its normal, empty size.

She parks in the driveway of her sister's home. It's empty, of course. Her sister's left her a note saying she's gone to New York City with her fiance but she'll be back before the weekend's up. Meanwhile, Juri should feel free to help herself to the fridge and explore the town and the national park. The beach is made up of seashells, crushed by the waves into grains. _The sand,_ her sister writes, _is beautiful and soft, with a color washed out by the ages._

* * *

Cars are forbidden on the beach. She leaves it on a parking lot overlooking a tall, rocky hill and takes a shuttle to the beach with her swimsuit and stolen hotel towel in a bag.

The afternoon is hot and the beach is full of people, stretched out on towels and splashing in the ocean. Nonetheless, she finds a crop of rocks by the cliff-side to shelter her while she changes. Water laps at her ankles. Someone comes splashing towards her, and when she turns, Shiori is there shivering before her.

This far north the Atlantic is a cold shock, unpleasant and briny. Juri offers her a towel.

Shiori says, ignoring her, "You should've joined the swimming team instead of the fencing club. The uniform hides your face. That's why sometimes I would watch you and think, 'how cool!' without knowing you were a girl." The very bottom of Shiori's skirt is getting flecked with water. "That's how I didn't know it was you. That's why…"

"Are you kidding me?" Juri says in disbelief.

Shiori lowers her head. The sun falls into Juri's eye and glares bright over her neck.

"I used to think you never saw me. Then I thought you always had your eye on me. But it turns out I'm the one who was looking while you saw nothing at all. You were never the driver. It was always me—me, me, me. All you did was point me to the right exit. I could've crashed whenever I wanted. But I didn't."

"If that's what you wanted me to feel, you should've turned into a horse."

"You're the one who'd look better as a horse, anyway. Me—I should've been a bug."

Juri says nothing. Shiori is right, in a way. In Ohtori she was constantly looking at pictures, and meanwhile, Shiori had her heart. But it's different now. The night before she stayed awake for hours, restless. She could feel the outline of Shiori's body by the way the heat hit the back of her calves, slanted on her spine and neck. The innocence of that night threatened, continues to threaten, mocked, still mocks, snarled, still snarls. Still, in that dark she could sense more than Shiori's body. She could sense her fear.

Juri puts a hand on her shoulder, then lowers the shoulder strap. Shiori's gaze falters as Juri peels the swimsuit from the top of her breasts, unsheathes her torso. Shiori is looking at her only through the corner of her eye, each glance jumpy and settling on a different place. Juri smiles bitterly. After all Shiori's done to get under her skin, this is the only thing that she can do. If Shiori were to strip here, Juri wouldn't be surprised by anything. She's already been inside Shiori, felt the moody, grumbling growl of her engine, the temperamental grind of the transmission. But she imagines it must be a shock for Shiori to see her like this.

"Well," she says. "You have me now. Look, if you'd like, at the person you hate so much."

At this, Shiori's neck snaps forward. Her mouth is narrow and white against her skin. Her hair shines with a complex, metallic light. Juri hears the grumble of the road, the rattle of glass and suspension. Shiori looks with a gaze that sears her in a way she's never felt before. Her hand moves up to her neck, seeking the chain—of course, there's nothing there, not a chain, not armor, not even a flower pinned to her breast. Nothing but skin and salt.

Finally, Shiori steps forward. "Juri-san," she says. Her gaze sucks Juri right in, it's so open; but it's the openness of a mouth, a hungry, black hole. Her kiss is like that, too, pulls her in, draws her like a ravine. Juri's surprise vibrates in her mouth, a stiffled 'mmph' and the unpleasant force of Shiori's tongue pushing against her lips. Shiori pulls back, tugs her shirt off. She licks her lips, then kisses her again, with force. Juri holds her breath. Shiori keeps pressing, moving her fingers along the underside of Juri's breast like she's moving a medicine ball. Her hand drops onto Juri's thigh. "If you don't stop me," she says, and lets it hang. She kisses Juri again.

A powerful feeling rises in her breast. It makes a smooth, cracking sound, like cloth snapping through the air. Juri knows there's no danger. Shiori will never go past this, not with the way she flinched from Juri's naked body. 'I'm the one who was looking while you saw nothing at all'—if that was the case, there would have been no fear to look at her head-on, there would have been no surprise over what was inside that locket.

Shiori thinks she knows her? Juri spreads her fingers along Shiori's stomach. 'You don't want it, is that it?' she said, that first night in the hotel. Yes, she wants it. But she wants Shiori to want it more.

Believe, and they will know your feelings. Good advice, if knowing is all that is wanted.

* * *

In the parking lot, later. Juri's hair is drying in limp, salty waves. Shiori's clothes are stiff with brine. Her eyes are shut in concentration.

It's evening. Some people have left, but many are content to stay where they are, caught between the pale sand and the yellow sun. Her feet are crusted with sand, even on the inside of her shoes.

"We could call a taxi," Juri says.

"Shut up," Shiori says. "I'm trying. I can't do it if you're looking at me."

"I'm going to get a soda."

She turns her back. The hairs on her neck raise. She half expects to hear the pop of a vacuum breaking as Shiori vanishes and a car replaces her body. She makes sure to not look back as she crosses the parking lot and feeds the dollars into the vending machine.

When she comes back, Shiori's still there. She's leaning against a car, pouting.

"I bet you're happy," she says. "Now that you have the miracle you wanted."

"And now that you've lost yours?" She hands Shiori a can of Pepsi. Shiori takes the can from her and drinks it. Over the circular, tin surface, she glares at Juri. "I didn't take anything from you," Juri says.

"I could never have been a car to begin with. Or anything, in the end."

Impossible. If she was never a car, then how are they here now? It's like a man on a ship in a typhoon denying the existence of water. Having the problem is proof of its existence. But she remembers, too, Shiori beneath her, the struggle of her body and her long, moving throat, the angry quiver of her lip when Juri's fingers slid into her. Yes, Juri took something. She took her ability to tantalize.

She lets her gaze slide towards Shiori. Shiori's lean has blossomed into a full-blown slouch. Her eyes are on the beach. In whatever defeat she sees herself in, she's let herself go slack. Like a defeated general, she's found the perverse joy of surrender: from here on there is nothing for her to do, only things that will be done to her. There are people in the world, Juri thinks ruefully, who enjoy that. She thinks this unsure whether she is thinking of herself or her friend.


End file.
